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TaxPayers' Alliance Bulletin - 9th September 2011 The 50p Rate of Tax Sign the e-petition on empty property rates Grassroots MPs' Expenses Best of the Blogs The 50p Rate of Tax The 50p rate of Income Tax is doing lasting damage to Britain's economy and must be abolished as soon as possible. So said 20 prominent economistsincluding former member of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee DeAnne Julius and Patrick Minford (pictured) in a letter to the Financial Times on Wednesday (£). At a time when growth is sluggish, we need to do what we can to encourage entrepreneurs and businesses to create jobs and kick-start a genuine private sector recovery. With such a high top rate of tax we are doing the exact opposite. As independent analysis suggests the new rate will reduce revenue, the rest of us will have to pay even more to make up the difference. The Chancellor should use his Autumn Statement to announce an end to the 50p rate. Sign the e-petition on empty property rates We need your help. There is an e-petition on the Government website that wants the rateable value to return to £18,000. It was started by the Business Centre Association and is backed by many groups, including ourselves. We hope you can lend your support and sign the petition here. Since April, nearly all businesses have to pay full business rates on an empty commercial property just three months after it becomes vacant, and six months later for an industrial property. Many members of the Government aggressively fought against this policy in opposition – it was called “wicked and ungodly” at one point. They should do something about it now. You can read Research Director John O’Connell’s full blog post on the subject here with a link to our research into the issue. Grassroots Continuing our regular profiles of our Grassroots activists this month is Jago Pearson. Jago is an undergraduate student of History and Politics at Loughborough University, while originally being from Canterbury, Kent. Having been an intern at the Taxpayers' Alliance in 2010, he is now Head of our Leicestershire branch. Jago also worked on the No to AV campaign, successfully helping to secure a 'No' vote in the 2011 referendum on the UK Voting System. Currently, he is engaged in co-ordinating a Virtual Film Festival on behalf of the Eurosceptic movement across the continent and is the Editor of Label Magazine, Loughborough University's student publication. In addition, he plays for the University cricket team. His work for the TPA ranges from submitting Freedom of Information requests to various Leicestershire public bodies to writing letters to local papers such as the Leicester Mercury. This Autumn, he will be featuring on the BBC East Midlands Politics Show, who followed him down to the Rally Against Debt earlier in the year. Aside from investigating excessive spending in Leicestershire, Jago has also written about issues across the Midlands. This blog post in March exposed remarkable public sector waste at the beleaguered RDA, Advantage West Midlands. If you would like to help Jago in getting value for money for Leicestershire taxpayers, you can email him here. MPs' Expenses At the start of the week it was announced that Margret Moran would face charges over her expenses claims. The former MP will appear in court in less than two weeks’ time. IPSA published the latest round of expenses on Thursday. The claims published relate to the period between April and May 2011. Nearly 27,000 claims were made for £3.5 million of taxpayers’ money during the period. Only 69 claims were rejected with fewer claims raising eybrows or making headlines. MPs Pete Wishart, Angus Robertson and Mike Hancock all picked up the latest gadget on their expenses, they claimed nearly £600 each for iPads. You can search through the latest claims of MPs here. In other news Sir Stuart Bell MP was dubbed “Britain’s Laziest MP” and "the Invisible Man" for allegedly failing to answer residents calls or hold a constituency surgery in the last 14 years. At the same time it was revealed that 1 in 5 MPs continue to employ a family member. This is despite the recommendation from The Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) and our evidence to the Kelly enquiry that MPs should not be allowed to employ family members with taxpayers’ money. Best of the Blogs Burning our Money: Non-job of the week - This week brought to you by Darren Rutland Better Government: More than 100 quango chiefs sitting on £1 million pension pots -Quango chiefs are each sitting on pot of gold that keep getting bigger and bigger Grass Roots: Swindon’s wi-fi waste - There's outrage in Swindon as over £400,000 of taxpayers' money goes missing, writes Tim Newark Burning our Money: Greek bond yields show their spending cuts weren’t deep and fast enough - The Greek experience shows what happens when governments which spend too much money fail to cut make their public spending cuts deep and fast enough Let them eat carbon: Let them eat carbon cited in the Lords - The Kindle Edition of "Let them eat Carbon" is now available